1st Invision Song Contest: Malmö, Sweden
The Invision Song Contest is a fan contest created and hosted by @CurtisLee__ & @xoxogeorgiamarie. The inagural edition took place in Malmö, Sweden with the theme ‘A Galaxy United’. The show consisted of two semifinals, taking place on the 4th and 6th of June, and a grand final taking place on the 13th of June. The winner was The United Kingdom with the song ‘Yes’, performed by Louisa Johnson. Location The first contest was held in Malmö, a coastal city in southern Sweden. The city is classified as a metropolis and is the third largest city in Sweden, behind Gothenburg and Stockholm. Malmö was one of the earliest urbanised and industrialised cities of Scandinavia. As of 2017, the city has a population of 312,000. Like the rest of southern Sweden, has an oceanic climate. Despite its northern location, the climate is surprisingly mild compared to other locations at similar latitudes, or even somewhat farther south, mainly because of the Gulf Stream. Owing to its northern latitude, daylight lasts 17 hours in midsummer, but only around 7 hours in midwinter. Summers are mild with average high temperatures of 20 to 23 °C (68 to 73 °F) and lows of around 11 to 13 °C (52 to 55 °F). Heat waves during the summer arise occasionally. Winters are fairly cold and windy, with temperatures steady between −3 to 4 °C (27 to 39 °F), but it rarely drops below −10 °C (14 °F). Rainfall is light to moderate throughout the year with 169 wet days. Snowfall occurs mainly in December through March, but snow covers do not remain for a long time, and some winters are virtually free of snow. Malmö is a young city, with almost half of the population under the age of 35 (48%). After 1971, Malmö had 265,000 inhabitants, but the population then dropped to 229,000 by 1985. The total population of the urban area was 280,415 in December 2010. It then began to rise again, and had passed the previous record by the 1 January 2003 census, when it had 265,481 inhabitants. On 27 April 2011, the population of Malmö reached the 300,000 mark. In 2017 the total population of the city was 333 633 inhabitants. As of 2015, Malmö had the fourth-highest proportion of foreign-born residents of any municipality in Sweden. In addition to these figures, 14% of the population are foreign nationals. In 2011, the 10 largest groups of immigrants were born in Iraq (9,940), Denmark (8,972), Serbia (8,426), Bosnia and Herzegovina (5,969), Lebanon (3,780), Iran (3,375), Poland (3,053), Turkey (2,110), Hungary (2,038) and Romania (2,014). The economy of Malmö was traditionally based on shipbuilding and construction related industries, such as concrete factories. The region's leading university, along with its associated hi-tech and pharmaceutical industries, is located in Lund about 16 kilometres to the north-east. As a result, Malmö had a troubled economic situation following the mid-1970s. Between 1990–1995, 27,000 jobs were lost, and the budget deficit was more than one billion Swedish krona (SEK). In 1995, Malmö had Sweden's highest unemployment rate. In 2016, the municipality received about 5 billion SEK annually from other municipalities to offset the worsening budget deficit. Semifinal Allocation Draw The draw was done by drawing positions and countries starting from 1st to 22nd in alternating semifinals (ex. The UK was drawn first in the first semi and Russia was drawn first in the second semi, then Netherlands was drawn second in the first semi and Macedonia was drawn second in the second semi and so on until all countries were allocated a position). Participating Countries ''' 44 countries took part in the inaugural contest. The rules of the competition stated that countries had to be part of the EBU in order to compete. All 43 countries that competed in the Eurovision 2018 contest, besides Denmark, competed along with Turkey and Andorra. The first country chosen was the UK (by BBESCMatt) and the last was Georgia (by kjESCil). '''Semifinal 1 The first semi-final took place on the 4th of June. 22 countries both competed and voted in the semi. The top 13 acts qualified to the grand finale, while the act that placed 14th was put through to the wildcard battle. The countries in bold qualified for the grand finale. The countries in bold qualified for the grand finale and the country in italics was the wildcard act. Semifinal 2 The second semifinal took place on 6th of June. 22 countries competed in the second semi both competed and voted in the second semi. The top 13 acts qualified to the grand finale, while the act that placed 14th was put through to the wildcard battle. The countries in bold qualified for the grand finale and the country in italics was the wildcard act. Wildcard Round The two countries who came 14th in their respective semi-finals were given the chance to be a wildcard. A poll was held with both France and Macedonia up for voting. In the end France won with 68% of the vote, tsending them through to the final as the 27th act. Grand Finale The grand finale took place on the 13th of June. 27 countries competed and 37 countries voted. For not voting, Germany and Turkey received a 60 point penalty taken from their televote. The running order was decided randomly.